Sonoma State University

November 15, 2023 Chairs and Deans Workshop Summary

Summary
November 15, 2023 Chairs and Deans Workshop

In this workshop, participants discussed Chair-related aspects of the CBA and the SSU Policy on Selection, Appointment, and Duties of Chairs. They then worked in large and small groups to provide feedback related to Chair workload, assigned time, and selection. To support these discussions, Chairs were provided with assigned time guidelines developed by APARC in 2021 and department stat sheets that included data such as number of majors, FTES, FTEF, etc.

Chair Workload 

For this discussion Chairs were asked how the current SSU Policy on duties of Chairs accurately reflect what Chairs do. They were asked if they thought the responsibilities of Chairs might change after reorganization and if so, how? Additional comments also included how increased workload overall could impact high-touch connections with students.

  • Right now it's hard to understand how, as a campus, we currently adjust workload to accommodate wide variations across departments; it seems like some Chairs currently do work that is completed by committees in other departments
  • Although there is always a learning curve for new Chairs, there will be a steep learning curve at the beginning as Chairs learn 
    • the curriculum of the new departments
    • faculty expertise and who can teach and sub for other faculty
    • nuances of the other disciplines in the school, current interpersonal relationships between faculty in the partner departments, and the overall history of the department and discipline
    • about scheduling needs and potential conflicts for different programs in another department
  • There may be an increased need to go to different meetings such as governance committee works
    • Note: Faculty Governance will address any new structures for governance committees in light of the new structure
    • While one person may go to more meetings, other people who are no longer Chairs will go to less
  • The Chair work will not be different, but more time and more knowledge needed
  • There will be more student interactions
  • Dedicated and structured summer time may be helpful to allow new Chairs to learn about the departments in their school. 
  • There will be more faculty for Chairs to know; this is particularly important for Chair mentorship of junior faculty
  • There will be additional Chair work to ensure representation of all faculty needs and potentially more conflicts to resolve; may be additional need to navigate DEI
  • Some departments have additional layers in their work like managing other spaces and activities that sometimes even become campus-wide events
  • There will be an increased number of lecturers to manage and potentially replace at the last minute as they take other jobs
  • Some indicated it will be hard to know the students because the Chair won’t be in classes from the other departments under their management or they will not be teaching as much because they will have more Chair time; others noted that teaching can be negatively impacted for a Chair because they don’t have the time to spend on it
  • New Chair workload seems like it will make Chairs more administrative and less like faculty

Chair Assigned Time

In this portion of the workshop, Chairs were first asked to discuss how Chair assigned time is determined now. Chairs were generally in agreement:

  • Chair time has largely been past practice for quite some time. But it’s also still negotiable
  • Departments continually have to negotiate for their Chair time. Although past practice has made it somewhat understood, it feels like it must be justified everytime a new Dean must learn what the Chair in that department does and why the past practice was established
  • Sometimes Chair time is dictated directly by accreditation requirements or the state
  • No matter what the assigned time is, there is always more work to be done

Chairs then followed up with an examination of the four sets of guidelines, developed by APARC in 2021, for determining Chair assigned time. Prediction of Chair assigned time with the APARC guidelines currently gives results similar to what Chairs are assigned under the current structure. Chairs were asked to give feedback about what components of the guidelines seemed reasonable, what was missing, etc. 

  • The guidelines don’t account for the student recruitment and retention work and the program development that is important for us to grow
  • Some programs have high lecturer turnover which results in higher workload that is not quantified in the guidelines
  • The weight given for Chairs who have to support additional events, programming, spaces, or staff seems low given current practice
  • The APARC guidelines assign more time to the Chair when there are more tenure-track faculty in the department. However, sometimes when there are fewer tenure-track faculty there is actually more work for the Chair because there are fewer leaders overall
  • It’s hard to quantify the amount of problem solving/conflict management Chairs do- this should be less dependent on departmental numbers
  • The learning curve for becoming a Chair isn’t included in the APARC guidelines
  • There are no included components for the higher-touch required for departments with graduate or professional training programs

It was also clarified that these guidelines determined by APARC are a starting point for discussion of Chair assigned time for each department cluster/school. For example, sometimes the guidelines result in fractional assigned time which doesn’t make sense. It was also clarified that faculty have a choice and would never be forced to be a Chair. If other faculty commitments (teaching, scholarship, etc) don’t allow for a faculty member to accept the assigned time units for Chair then they would need to prioritize their own commitments. The question of will there still be room for negotiation with the Dean for additional assigned time when necessary (e.g. years with heavy accreditation requirements) also came up? It is not unreasonable for those negotiations to still occur. For example, assigned time is currently given for additional work like Program Review.

Chair Selection Process

In this last part of the workshop, Chairs were asked to provide ideas about how departments could make Chair selections that allowed for equity in faculty representation across the departments within their school. The CBA does not require Chair elections. There were questions about the role of the Faculty Bill of Rights in Chair selection. There were also suggestions that there be a campus policy on Chair selection.

  • Departments could elect program coordinators and then have Chairs rotate from between these coordinators every three years
  • There is concern about program coordinator compensation
  • Use an Electoral college model
  • Break down the assigned time by workload and the parse it out to multiple faculty
  • Have the Chair selection rotate between departments